


all i know since yesterday is everything has changed

by iliveinfantasies



Series: The Worst Witch 2018 Winter Fluff Event [7]
Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Day 8, F/F, Gen, Hicsqueak, Other, decorations, ww2018winterfluffevent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 03:50:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16946445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iliveinfantasies/pseuds/iliveinfantasies
Summary: Pippa, Hecate learned quickly, was the sort of girl who decorated her room for every occasion.Glittering pink fairy lights on Valentine’s Day, miniscule pumpkins on Halloween, carved and moving in the shadows. Even tiny burning candles, flickering and bright, stuck into ordered lines in the windows for Hanukkah.“You’re not Jewish, Pippa,” Hecate would point out, mildly, and Pippa would shrug.“So?” She’d say. “Someone is, so I might as well decorate for it.”Hecate would raise an eyebrow, purse her lips, and do her best to shove down the fondness bubbling in her chest.-----Day 8: decoratingPairing: Hicsqueak





	all i know since yesterday is everything has changed

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, my name is Cate and I'm clearly incapable of writing pure fluff.
> 
> That said, this one gets to the happy faster, I think. Not my favorite work, but...I did try, at least.
> 
> I'm still behind, but catching up very slowly. I'll just keep pushing!
> 
> Thanks for reading, and commenting! I honestly adore this fandom.
> 
> Tumblr: iliveinfantasylife

Hecate had never truly known what holidays were like before Pippa.

Hecate’s father was practical, traditional; very taken by his teachings, by his study of The Craft. By making sure his daughter knew her place, knew her power, knew her magic.

His resolve merely strengthened, after Hecate’s mother died.

They were an old family, a traditional family, and he never stood for such frivolities as birthdays, or holidays. Holidays were a time for _tradition_ he’d say, not silliness. Candle lighting on Halloween, flames dancing along the walls, casting eerie shadows in darkened corners; chants during Yuletide, incantations that shimmered when spoken, burning like embers until her lungs felt filled with ash. A single, practical gift, given to Hecate on each of her birthdays; spell books and jars, broom clippers for loose pieces.

Hecate had made the mistake, once, of asking her father for a cake for her seventh birthday. She had read about it in a book, she told him, her mouth wrapping around the words like a particularly delicious sweet. _It’s traditional,_ she’d added, allowing herself the luxury of a small smile, marveling at the idea of something as indulgent as an actual cake.

He’d locked her in the closet, where she sat, magic wavering in the darkness, and told her she was to stay in there until she could hone her magic to a point that would force all of these frivolities out of her head.

She’d been stuck in there for hours, fists clenched, gritting her teeth, using her reserved energies to form a ball of glittering light in the vast blackness.

Hecate never made that mistake again.

It wasn’t until Amulet’s, until the small, careful form of Pippa Pentangle appeared around the corner to pull her out of an enchanted closet and announce, quite authoritatively, that they “were to be friends,” that Hecate truly saw what celebrations looked like.

Pippa, Hecate learned quickly, was the sort of girl who decorated her room for every occasion.

Glittering pink fairy lights on Valentine’s Day, miniscule pumpkins on Halloween, carved and moving in the shadows. Even tiny burning candles, flickering and bright, stuck into ordered lines in the windows for Hanukkah.

“You’re not Jewish, Pippa,” Hecate would point out, mildly, and Pippa would shrug.

“So?” She’d say. “Someone is, so I might as well decorate for it.”

Hecate would raise an eyebrow, purse her lips, and do her best to shove down the fondness bubbling in her chest.

It wasn’t until Hecate left--until she ran off in the night on the heels of a particularly charged evening, after falling asleep in Pippa’s bed, again, and leaving her alone on the field the next morning; until she took herself, and her deadweight, and her _love,_ and ran straight into the arms of a monster--that Hecate truly felt the depth of the loss there.

Felt an odd sort of emptiness, a hollowness where where she hadn’t ever expected it to be--no hearts, no charms, no faintly glowing fairy lights adorning windows. No gifts on her birthday, lumpy scarves and contraband cookies, stirred and woven by Pippa’s hands in the evenings.

Just a sick sort of longing, something strange and rotting, like a piece of her soul gone sour; until finally, quietly, the days all melded together into the same vast emptiness she’d come to know in the dark.

* * *

 

They had come to a calm sort of peace, now.

Ever since they’d reconciled, shared the pieces of themselves they’d thought they’d shoved aside, blown back the memories in their minds into full, glittering color; Hecate could almost say, almost taste the word _friends_ on the tip of her tongue when she said Pippa’s name, once again.

They had begun slowly, mirror chats Sunday nights, and moved on to more--better things, bolder things.

The sort of things that Hecate hadn’t even _realized_ she’d needed; Pippa’s voice, light and melodic, trilling the parts of her life to Hecate through the enchanted glass. Pippa’s laugh, the clacking of her heels on cobblestones, her very _presence,_ again, in Hecate’s life.

It was intoxicating.

It was terrifying.

Hecate went to Pippa’s for chess every Thursday evening, now; it was reminiscent of their earlier days, weekends spent pouring over the chess set in the library, a long forgotten scorebook slung into one of their bags.

It was the first such Thursday in December, and Hecate remembered, with startling clarity, every single one of the ways in which Pippa had decorated for Yule during their time at Amulet’s.

One year had been silver, silver everywhere, and all over--sharp, icy snowflakes, glinting off the castle windows. Long, winding strands of tinsel, that make Hecate itchy just looking at them. Silver baubles, nearly as large as Hecate’s head, hanging from the ceiling.

One year was all plaid.

One year--the year that Pippa truly cemented her love for pink--her room was adorned in an ungodly amount of tinny, pink, shining Christmas trees, with large gold stars hanging from their limbs. That year, Hecate had tried, unsuccessfully, to inform Pippa that pink was not exactly a traditional Yuletide colour. Pippa had merely responded with, “Well, I’m not exactly a traditional witch, either,” and kept the pink.

Now that Pippa had an entire quarters to herself, Hecate could only imagine the sort of insanity that would be adorning her rooms.

But when Pippa led Hecate--still covered in a light dusting of snow and pine needles from her flight--into her quarters, Hecate came up short. There was no tinsel, or life-sized reindeer, or ten-foot-tall nutcrackers. No flurries of snowflakes falling from the ceiling, stopping short of their heads as they walked around the room.

Just a single, sparsely adorned fir tree in the corner by the fireplace, and a number of glittering gold snowflakes glinting on the windows.

Pippa pressed past Hecate in the doorway and glanced at her, frowning slightly.

“Hiccup, what’s wrong?”

Hecate said nothing for a long moment, merely stared around her, a small sense of unexpected loneliness bubbling up her her chest.

“It’s--” she began, stilted and sharp. She didn’t know how to put it into words, not exactly; not here, thirty years later, standing, for the first time in Pippa’s rooms for a holiday.

She gestured, helplessly, at the bare walls. “You...you didn’t. Decorate.”

Pippa’s face took on a look of confusion, and she glanced around at the room, eyes catching on the tree in the corner.

“I...there’s a tree, there, Hiccup, haven’t you noticed?” her face was a bit worried, now, as though concerned that Hecate might be losing it, just a little.

Hecate shook her head, almost mechanically.

“No,” she said, and the word came out awkward, strange. “You didn’t. _Decorate._ ” She repeated the words, frustration seeping into her skin, but this time, the intention seemed to take.

Pippa’s eyes widened, and she sucked in a sharp intake of air.

“ _Oh,”_ she said, quietly, a small, sad smile overtaking her face. “Hecate, this _is_ decorated. What I used to do was...” she shook her head, lightly. “Was different, it was.” She didn’t continue.

“But--” said Hecate, “You always. Decorated for. Everything.”

Pippa let out a sharp, watery laugh, her eyes just a little glassy. “Hecate, Hiccup, I...” she murmured, eyes warm and sad and just a little lost. “It was for you.”

Hecate froze entirely, now, cloak clutched tightly in her hands.

“Pardon?” she pressed out through her teeth, and Pippa let out a long breath.

“I knew that you didn’t…well, I knew you didn’t celebrate at home, at all. That your holidays with you father were.” she made a face, something dark and dubious overtaking her eyes. “Were not exactly celebratory. So I wanted to make sure that...that you had something, that you had holidays to celebrate, at school. To, um, make the times you had at home a little more, well. A little better.”

Hecate’s breath was caught in her lungs, her chest heavy and full, her heart fluttering.

_It was for you._

All this time, and it hadn’t been for Pippa.

It had been for her.

So often, back then, she’d looked at Pippa, only to find her looking back, something warm, and wide, and unrecognizable in her eyes.

Now, she wondered if--

If maybe, if possibly, that unrecognizable thing, was--

“You. You did that. For. For me?” Hecate pressed a hand, stiffly, to her own chest, and watched Pippa, a little bit warily.

Pippa exhaled, long and quiet, and pressed a hand to Hecate’s cheek. “Of course I did, Hiccup.” Her voice was hoarse, and thick, and a little bit loaded. “I loved you.”

_There it was, then._

But not in the way it sounded, surely. As a friend, yes, but. But.

“And now?”

The words were out of Hecate’s mouth before she could fully comprehend them, before she could stop their progression into the space between them in the air.

Pippa sucked in again, sharp and deep.

“And now,” she murmured, voice soft and so, so quiet, “I still do.”

Hecate’s eyes snapped shut, the words washing over her like a warm wave.

Then her own voice, soft and so, so quiet.

“I love you, too.”

_I always have._

_I always will._


End file.
